


Bruised

by grim_lupine



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Dom/sub, First Time, M/M, Marking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-05
Updated: 2010-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:47:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grim_lupine/pseuds/grim_lupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray feels Brad’s hands on his skin for days, every time he shifts, like he’s been branded by them. Brad doesn’t leave marks that can’t be explained away if noticed, but after that it’s like he’s been given free rein to do what he wants to Ray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruised

-

\--

It starts off small: Ray’s fingers drumming restlessly on the Humvee’s steering wheel, ba-da- _dum_ , ba-da- _dum_ , ba-da- _dum_. He’s jittery, ready to go and they’re not moving. He’s got words bubbling up out of his mouth, sheer manic energy roiling under his skin, and it’s pouring itself out of Ray through all possible outlets.

He sees Brad start to move out of the corner of his eye, an instant before Brad reaches out and grabs Ray’s wrist, stilling his movements. “Ray,” he says calmly, “enough.”

Ray frowns at him, starts tugging his hand away, partly out of a desire to be contrary, partly because fuck it, Brad’s talking to him like he’s a toddler throwing a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store or something. Brad catches his gaze and tightens his grip almost hard enough to bruise now, and at that moment something hot and dark and fleeting passes through his eyes; Ray’s breath catches in his throat, and his words evaporate into dust in his mouth. He’s all-too-aware of Brad’s thumbnail biting sharply into his skin, the rough drag of his calloused fingers keeping Ray still. Brad holds his eyes for what feels like a yawning eternity, but can only be a few seconds at most, before dropping Ray’s wrist with a flick of his own and turning to face forward once again.

Ray looks out his window, trying to find the appropriate expression for a time like this; his mouth feels a little slack, like he doesn’t know whether to frown or grin or start talking. Out of the corner of his eye he studies his wrist, Brad’s finger marks still slightly bleached white onto his skin. It’s not enough to bruise properly, but it could—it _could_ —

“Let’s go, Ray,” Brad says evenly, and Ray jolts, doesn’t look at Brad as he starts them rolling off into another day of driving and fighting and no time to think about things that threaten to get him all mixed up in the worst ways possible.

*

It’s not like Brad gets all obviously handsy after that. He’s ever the same, makes fun of Ray’s face, intelligence and mother in no particular order like nothing’s changed at all. Maybe nothing _has_ changed for him; maybe Ray’s reading too much of nothing into one gesture, maybe it’s the fucking Ripped Fuel making him _think_ too goddamn much.

Only—Brad tells Ray, “Get in the fucking Humvee, we’re Oscar Mike,” and punctuates it with a slight shove, fingers spanning wide across Ray’s back, the tips little pinpricks of heat that bleed through to Ray’s skin. His hand lingers just a bit, just enough to make Ray stumble slightly. Small things like that, barely-there touches that would be meaningless in anyone else, except for the way that Ray _knows_ Brad, knows when he’s got himself some kind of agenda that he’s just waiting for Ray to catch up with.

Brad leans over Ray to talk to him, and it isn’t his customary loom; no, this is looming with _intent_ , Brad straightening up into every predatory inch his fucking eight-feet-tall ass has, wordlessly daring Ray to see how much of a difference there is between them.

Yeah. Ray fucking sees it.

It all culminates when Brad comes upon Ray mid-combat jack; Ray’s skin prickles all over with awareness, his body reacting to Brad’s presence before his mind can even catch up. Brad’s the kind of silent that speaks to Ray louder than a scream, coming up behind Ray and watching impassively as his hand stills around his cock.

Ray meets Brad’s eyes for an instant, before he sets his jaw stubbornly and keeps his hand where it is; fuck it, Brad’s been fucking with him for days now—if he wants to get this razor’s-edged tension between them going where they both know it’s heading, he can damn well say something first.

“I know even an inbred societal reject like you knows how to jerk off properly, Ray,” Brad breathes in his ear, reaching up to rest his left hand on the back of Ray’s neck. His fingers are long and calloused, almost wrap all the way around. His thumb rests over Ray’s pulse, and Ray swallows into it, mouth dry.

“Brad, I know you’re a chronic backseat-driver, but I think I can handle this on my own, thanks,” Ray retorts, because it’s what they do. It’s what’s expected of him, even if he knows Brad can hear every minute tremor in his voice, every sign that says his words and his desires most emphatically do not match up.

Brad’s mouth quirks up, just a little. He reaches down with his other hand and covers Ray’s with it, fucking _covers_ it, just hints of Ray’s fingers peeping out. Brad’s hand is warm and brushes lightly against Ray’s cock, and Ray has to fight to not jerk his hips forward and try to get _more_. “Well, it helps if your hand is moving,” Brad says, and the words aren’t an order but the tone definitely is, and Ray’s hips are snapping forward and reacting to it without a thought, because compliance to that tone is burned into his bones. Brad’s hand settles around Ray’s wrist, adjusting his grip, tightening and setting the pace; it might be Ray’s hand around his cock, but he isn’t jerking himself off the way he wants to. He’s jerking himself off the way _Brad_ wants him to, and Ray has to stifle what would be a decidedly embarrassing noise at the thought.

Brad’s left hand tightens around Ray’s neck, thumb stroking behind Ray’s ear and pushing brutally into his flesh; Ray wonders, if they weren’t here, surrounded by fucking _Recon Marines_ , would Brad just lean down and bite him there? Leave his mark, a ring of teeth on the back of Ray’s neck like he’s signed him with his name?

Ray comes like that, caught between Brad’s two hands and unable to break away, held there to Brad’s will.

*

Ray feels Brad’s hands on his skin for days, every time he shifts, like he’s been branded by them. Brad doesn’t leave marks that can’t be explained away if noticed, but after that it’s like he’s been given free rein to do what he wants to Ray. Like Ray’s answered some question for him by the way he shook in Brad’s grip and just came for him, as if Brad reached within his head and rearranged all of his brain signals, reworked him from the inside so that his cock is attuned to everything Brad does. So that the only thing his body knows is _Brad_.

There’s nothing holding Brad back now from pushing Ray down on his knees the minute they have a little bit of privacy, fucking into his mouth and tightening his hand on Ray’s shoulder; nothing keeping him from marking Ray up like he’s a blank canvas, leaving finger-bruises on his hips and high up on his arm, tender places that Ray feels for days. Their memory lingers ghost-like even when the color’s faded away.

Through all of this, Ray keeps normal in public, runs his mouth off with a shit-eating grin and answers Brad’s insults with obscene comments of his own. They still do their double-act, roll into combat as a steady team, reading each other’s minds as easily as ever.

It’s only when it’s the two of them that Ray goes biddable at a searing look from Brad. He’s no pushover and he means to tell Brad that once, twice; he tries a handful of times, but when Brad looks at him like that and kisses him like he’s trying to make him bleed just a little, Ray can’t help but just turn loose and yielding in his grip. He thinks he’d let Brad do anything to him at those moments, and he might hate it a little, but the trouble is he loves it even more.

Anyway, he trusts Brad with his life out here, so trusting him now is just an extension of that. Brad never looks at Ray like he thinks less of him for his knees going weak and sending him to the floor, for his mouth going slack and helpless when Brad gets both his wrists in one hand and holds them firm. He just looks at Ray like he wants to keep him like that, there for Brad to do with him what he will, for always.

*

 _Always_ eventually comes to an end, though. That’s the problem. Actually, their real problem is that their whole time in Iraq they went with trading surreptitious handjobs and blowjobs without ever actually talking about what the fuck they were doing; but that can’t be helped. They’re men, and they’re _Marines_. They don’t talk about that shit.

Might have helped now, though. Because now they’re set to go home, and Ray can still feel the sharp sting of Brad’s nails at the base of his back, and Brad won’t look at him properly. They’ve built up this habit of not talking about the way Brad hurts Ray a little to make him come, the way Ray _asks_ for it, only now Ray can tell that the way Brad is determinedly avoiding the subject means that it’s over, done with.

All right. Ray was expecting that, anyway. It was just a wartime thing, just something to keep them occupied and a little bit more grounded than they might have been otherwise.

Ray can deal with that.

*

Only, he really _can’t_. Somehow Brad’s gotten deftly under Ray’s skin, slid into his brain, so that Ray gets home and night after night wakes up from dreams of Brad with his hand around Ray's cock, the other hand wrapping almost all the way around Ray's arm, and when he blinks out of sleep he can still taste the dust in the air and hear Brad's voice rasping in his ear. A couple of times he reaches for the phone and almost calls Brad to hear his voice for real, before he shakes his head and hangs up, wondering both where his balls went and when he turned into the star of a Lifetime movie.

Ray’s a skinny little fuck, and it’s not exactly difficult to find a guy bigger than him, a guy who wouldn’t mind pushing him around a little. He knows even as he’s going into it that it’s a bad idea; he can feel the wrong edge of it start his fingers twitching a little as he follows him into the bathroom at the bar. He ignores it, though; to get Brad out of his head, he’ll try just about anything.

It doesn’t work. It’s about as far from ‘working’ as anything could get. The guy leers at Ray and slams him up against the wall, and Ray’s vision goes a little dark with sudden, irrational rage. He has to fist his hands in his own shirt to keep from decking the guy where he stands; Ray’s a fucking _Marine_ , it’s not in him to stand there and let this pussy civilian with more muscle than brains try and shove him to his knees. He can’t do it.

There’s only one person in this world that he trusts to hurt him just right, and it isn’t that guy he left in the bathroom behind him. That guy hasn’t _earned_ it.

Ray goes home, dimly aware that he’s left half-moon nail marks on his palms from clenching his hands so tightly. Those and his tattoos are the only things marking him up right now, and he’s painfully aware that anything he’s done to himself doesn’t count. He strips down for his shower, stands under the water with the lights off, knows what he looks like even without the illumination: blank. Pale. An empty canvas with no one to change that.

 _Fuck_ , Ray’s got to stop this before he starts wearing too much eyeliner and writing shitty poetry about the torments of his life or something. Brad doesn’t want him anymore, and that. Is. That. That’s what he has to remember, and get the fuck over this teenage-girl angsting before he spontaneously grows a pair of breasts.

Time to move on.

*

Except.

Except, except. There is not a person out there who knows Brad better than Ray does, and because of that Ray knows exactly how emotionless Brad _isn’t_ , how good he is at pushing people away because he thinks _they’ll_ push him away first. He knows that Brad is kind of severely fucking retarded when it comes to interpersonal feelings, and he’s been pretty retarded himself for not remembering that sooner.

All right, so Ray still isn’t exactly sure of the welcome he’ll receive if he shows up on Brad’s doorstep with a duffel bag and a smirk, and it might kill him a little if Brad looks at him blankly with eyes that say _What the fuck are you doing here?_ , but for Brad, Ray will take the risk.

So he drives, and he drives, and he doesn’t let himself have second thoughts until his nose is inches away from Brad’s closed door, and then he makes himself knock before he can change his mind and drive back the way he came.

Brad answers the door, and seeing him again after all this time knocks all the air out of Ray’s lungs in one fell swoop. He draws in a breath, twists his fingers into the strap of his duffel bag to hide their minute trembling, and somehow finds it in him to put on his best cocky smirk and say, “Miss me, Brad? I bet you cried yourself to sleep every night without me, didn’t you?”

One beat, two beats, Brad’s face doesn’t change. But Ray can see his brain whirring, can see the change starting to light up his eyes. He sees it when Brad’s shoulders lose all their tension, like a sigh being let out, when his mouth softens and his eyes crinkle up, and Ray’s stomach finally settles back into place. He’s a little dizzy with relief.

Brad opens the door wider, steps back. “Get the fuck in here,” he says quietly, happily, and Ray just grins at him and does as he’s told.

He gets maybe three steps inside the house before Brad slams the door shut behind Ray, and then shoves him up against it so hard that his back jolts, his whole _body_ jolts all over, and Ray just swears breathlessly and tries futilely to catch Brad’s mouth with his own.

“What was that you asked me, Ray?” Brad murmurs inches away from his mouth. “Did I miss you? Fuck that, did you miss _me_ , Ray? Miss me taking you apart with my hands till you couldn’t tell me your own _name_ , isn’t that why you came here?”

“Fuck you, I could get that at home,” Ray says sharply, even as he pushes his whole body into Brad’s deft hands. If Brad thinks that’s the only reason he packed up a bag and came looking for him, he’s too stupid to exist. Brad stills, something dangerous slipping into his eyes.

“Yeah? You been looking for that, Ray?” Brad asks quietly, shoving both of Ray’s wrists against the door and sliding them up above his head. Ray tips his head back, wets his lips and feels Brad’s eyes track his movements like a physical caress.

“I’ve been looking,” he says. “It never worked for me, though. You know why that is, Brad?”

Brad’s eyes are dark, his fingers tight around Ray’s wrists. He looks angry and aroused and a little off-balance, like Ray’s turned him upside down by coming here like this and refusing to call what they’re doing anything less than what it is. Good. Ray doesn’t need Brad to write him poetry about his eyes or some shit like that, but Brad deserves a little shaking-up for turning _Ray’s_ life on edge back in Iraq, then retreating into his shell like some form of demented socially inept turtle who couldn’t tell that Ray’s—he’s—

Well. Brad’s ruined Ray for anyone else. It’s only fair he take care of what he created.

Brad’s still looking into Ray’s eyes like he’s trying to read him throughout, still pinning Ray up against the door like he’ll never let him leave.

“Come on, Brad,” Ray says quietly, “get with the program.”

And that works; of course it does. Brad’s eyes flare up and then the tension in his brow smoothes out. He grins at Ray sharply and steps back, turns him around and pushes him forward. Ray lets Brad shove him down the hall to his bedroom, his hand warm and firm on Ray’s back. Brad flicks the lights on, then tells Ray calmly, “Strip. Now.”

Ray swallows hard. All traces of Brad’s earlier uncertainty are gone; he’s standing taller, looming, looking Ray over slowly like he’s got a million and one things he’d like to do to him, and he won’t rest until he’s done them all. Ray has never seen anyone as comfortable in their skin as Brad is—Brad who owns his height, who wears authority like it’s a skin he was born in. There’s no one like Brad.

Ray’s stripping his shirt off and kicking out of his jeans in the space of a breath, eagerness thrumming through him. Fuck, he’s hard already. Brad smiles at his enthusiasm, the obvious signs of his arousal, then lifts an eyebrow. “Going commando, Ray? Don’t tell me you came here with impure intentions.”

“Fuck yeah I did,” Ray says, wondering at the rough sound of his own voice. “You telling me I’m going to be disappointed?”

Brad’s on him in the next second, tipping his chin up and just _taking_ his mouth, biting at his lips and kissing him slow and messy, holding Ray there until the edges of his vision are going a little spotty. “Anything but,” Brad says quietly, as Ray gasps for air. His knees are a little weak, but it doesn’t matter. Brad has him. Brad always has him.

“You’re all talk, Colbert,” he says raggedly, because he _cannot_ resist poking at trouble, he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t try it, and there is nothing better than watching Brad’s whole body go still with purpose at his words. Brad pushes Ray hard enough that he loses his balance and falls backward onto the bed, and straddles him before Ray can say anything else.

“Is that so,” Brad says slowly. “So if I told you that I’m going to suck you off and I won’t let you come, until I have you _begging_ me to put my cock in you, I suppose you wouldn’t believe me, then?”

Ray shudders a little. He’d say something smart, but—Brad fits his hand over Ray’s hip, thumb rubbing over the bone, fingernails digging in sharply; it’s the same place he marked Ray up when they did this last, and Ray’s felt that hand on him since then, and Brad’s touching him the same way he did before, like—like he’s been thinking about this as much as Ray has. Like it’s been driving him insane at night too.

Brad’s gaze sharpens, and Ray wouldn’t be surprised if he were reading his mind right now. Ray feels like he’s been cut open, raw and spread out for Brad to see everything; he’s been needing this for too long. It’s all he can think about.

“No reason to hold back anymore, Ray,” Brad says, thumb a dull pressure against Ray’s hip. “I’m going to mark you up all over, for _anyone_ to see. You walk down the street and everyone’ll know you belong to someone, that there’s no chance for them. I can put bruises around your wrists if I want to. I can mark this—” he puts his hand around Ray’s throat “—as mine. And you’d let me, wouldn’t you? You’d love it.”

Ray shuts his eyes, feels his throat work against Brad’s fingers as he swallows. He wants it, he wants it _all_ , everything that Brad’s saying and more. He’s gone stupid with lust, unable to say anything or even move. He can only trust Brad to know what he needs, like he always has.

“Yeah,” Brad says, and it’s as tender as Ray’s ever heard him sound. Ray keeps his eyes shut and clenches the bed sheet in his hands. He hears the rustling of Brad undressing, feels Brad grab his legs and drag him closer to the edge of the bed, the mattress creaking a little beneath him.

Warm, wet heat surrounds his cock, and Ray’s eyes fly open. He pushes himself up onto his elbows to watch Brad Colbert kneel between his legs and suck his cock, and it’s a million times better than those ephemeral dreams he’s been trying to hold onto every time he wakes up in the morning. Brad sucks him off for what feels like forever, with all the concentration he puts into everything he does, teasing the head of Ray’s cock with his tongue, pulling off with an obscene slurping noise and watching Ray gasp for breath desperately. Brad leans back in and just sucks on the head, carefully, like he’s cataloguing Ray’s taste, like he’s in no hurry at all and would be happy doing this for hours.

“ _Brad_ ,” Ray says breathlessly, and realizes that he’s been chanting Brad’s name steadily, desperately, all this time, and _oh fuck_ this is going to be over a lot faster than Brad thinks it is, Ray’s been halfway to orgasm pretty much since Brad slammed him against the front door so hard he couldn’t breathe, and—

Brad pulls away abruptly, says sharply, “Ray, no. Hold it off. For me, Ray.”

For him. The two fucking magic words. Ray needs this so bad his eyes are stinging a little; he closes them again, because at this point, if he _looks_ at Brad, gorgeous and lean and kneeling in front of Ray, he’ll probably come from just that. The silence trickles by, broken only by the sound of Ray panting harshly for breath as he tries to get control over himself. Brad has one hand warm on his thigh, just resting there, a comfortable steadying pressure.

When his heart stops trying to beat its way out of his chest and he doesn’t think he’ll come from Brad _breathing_ on him, Ray blinks his eyes slowly open and focuses in on Brad. Brad smiles at him, reaches up and unclenches Ray’s hands. Ray realizes he’s been digging his nails into his palms so hard they’ve left marks, and Brad smoothes over them with his thumbs, like he’s memorizing the feel of them.

“That’s good, Ray,” Brad says quietly, and then swiftly he leans in and bites down on Ray’s hip, teeth digging in _hard_ , like he’s branding him there. Ray cries out and jerks up, body zinging all over, unsure for a moment if he’s trying to move away from Brad’s mouth or push harder into it. The pain goes straight to his cock, sending him that close to the edge all over again, but Brad said to hold it off, so Ray grits his teeth and somehow does it. Brad pulls away and looks down at him with something hot and triumphant glittering in his eyes; Ray can feel his hip throbbing dully in time with his pulse, and the pain flares up again when Brad presses his thumb into the same spot, and it’s so fucking amazing Ray has to remind himself to breathe.

“Good boy,” Brad breathes, voice dark and smoky, and Ray’s cock spurts a little more precome at that; jesus _christ_ , Brad’s going to kill him like this.

“Fuck, Brad,” Ray says, and he doesn’t recognize his own voice, as strained and pleading as it is, “what do you _want_ from me?”

“I want you to ask me for it,” Brad says calmly. He reaches out and grabs both of Ray’s wrists in one hand, grips them so tight Ray can almost feel his bones grind. As a way to get him to talk, it’s pretty damn effective, and Brad knows it too. “I want to hear you say it. Come on, Ray, I know you know how to talk, god knows you do it enough for ten other people. Just say it.”

“Jesus.” Ray expels a breath, then shakes his head, mouth working unsteadily into a grin. “Jesus, all right, you egotistical sonofabitch, you want to hear how much I need your cock? How much I need you to fuck me, how it’s all I’ve been able to think about? Get the fuck in me before I die of old age, Brad. Is that enough for you?”

“It’s a start,” Brad says, and just like that he’s got two fingers slicked up and working their way into Ray’s hole—and when the fuck did he get the lube out, christ, Ray must have been more distracted than he thought—slow but decidedly ungentle. He stretches Ray with his fingers, glancing over his prostate and watching Ray grit his teeth against the sounds that want to escape. “Let me hear it, Ray,” Brad tells him, and leans down to lick over the purpling bruise on his hip, teeth grazing it a little. Ray lets out a stuttering cry and pushes up against him, mind a hazy mess of _please_ and _more_. Brad pushes Ray’s legs up and apart, reaching out for a condom, and Ray watches him roll it on himself with his eyes fixed on Ray’s. Brad looks—god, hungry and pleased and fond all at once, and Ray’s stomach lurches in response to the heat in his eyes.

It’s like he’s been waiting years for this, the way Brad pushes into him torturously slow with his mouth half-open, a pink flush spreading down his chest. “Goddamnit, Brad, I’m not a fucking _girl_ ,” Ray says, the words torn out of him in frustration. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

Brad’s sudden smile is dangerous and predatory, slicing right into Ray’s chest; his next thrust is forceful and knocks the air out of Ray’s lungs. Ray’s head is spinning and he doesn’t know where to put his hands for a moment, but Brad solves that problem for him by circling both his wrists again and drawing them up above his head in an iron hold. Ray can feel the bruises forming, and he wants to wear those marks forever.

“Keep those there,” Brad tells him, strain creeping in at the edges of his voice, and Ray does, even when Brad fucks him hard and fast like he’s been needing, even when he’s leaking precome and making a mess of himself from how good this feels, even when he thinks just one stroke will take him over that edge; Brad told him to keep his hands up, and fuck if it doesn’t feel good to have someone who knows what real command is strip away all his control.

“That’s it, baby, so good,” Brad murmurs distractedly, like he’s not even hearing his own words, too caught up in Ray, “fuck, you’re almost there, aren’t you? I won’t even have to touch your cock and you’ll come for me, so _sweet_ — .”

Ray barely sounds _human_ right now with the noises he’s making, and when Brad reaches down to stroke two-fingered over the bite mark on his hip it’s almost too much, Ray couldn’t stop himself at this point if his life were on the line. Brad can see it. Brad always knows what he needs. Brad’s looking at him like something’s breaking open inside him, just a little, and he ducks his head down and says roughly, “Come on, Ray, come for me,” and fastens his teeth firmly at the base of Ray’s throat, biting him there like he’s—fuck, like he’s _claiming_ Ray.

Brad’s _never_ marked him there before—it’s too visible, everyone would have noticed, too dangerous, and Ray _wanted_ it, didn’t know how much he did. That’s it for him; Brad’s teeth at his throat and the rest of his marks on Ray’s body, his cock still splitting Ray open, and with how long Ray’s wanted this, it’s no wonder he comes all over himself, sobbing for breath, feeling like every vein in his body has come alive.

It feels like his orgasm rolls on forever, leaving him boneless and a little dizzy. Brad’s still hard inside Ray, but he’s holding himself completely motionless, just watching Ray with a look on his face that makes Ray swallow hard. “Hey,” Ray murmurs, somehow gathering the coordination to lift his hand and slide it down Brad’s back, pulling him a little bit closer. “Come on, your turn.”

Brad lets out a shaky breath and pulls almost all the way out of Ray, then thrusts back in carefully. It’s almost too much feeling, so good it hurts a little, but Ray wants it still. He wants everything Brad has to give him. Now that everything in his head isn’t tuned into the _have to come NOW_ channel, his mouth starts working again, and he says, “To answer your fucking retarded question from earlier, Brad: yes, I did miss you. I missed the way you fucked my mouth, and the way you put bruises all over me, and I missed you insulting the fuck out of me as you jerked me off harder than anyone else knows how to. And I missed more than that, and if you don’t know why I came here, we’re going to have to seriously reassess the perception of your intelligence.”

Brad makes a noise that’s half-laugh, half-groan, and when Ray drags his head down to kiss him, Brad kisses him back wet and open and comes like that, arms shaking slightly with the strain of holding himself up, until he stops shuddering minutely and opens up his eyes again. Ray almost doesn’t want to let Brad out of him, but Brad finally draws back and carefully pulls out of Ray, getting rid of the condom efficiently and silently. Ray knows every one of Brad’s silences, and this one means that he’s thinking too much; figures that he couldn’t even relax in the afterglow for thirty _seconds_. Brad tries to hide it, but he’s secretly a giant girl underneath his hardass exterior.

“I would totally take the time to sing you a song about how we’re MFEO, Brad, but I seriously think I’m going to fall asleep now,” Ray says fuzzily, eyes already starting to droop. “Sorry.”

There’s a pause, then Brad huffs out a laugh and says softly, “Jesus, Ray, what am I going to do with you?”

“Don’t know,” Ray says, yawning, “but let’s figure it out later.” Eyes half-closed, he lets Brad clean him up gently and manhandle him around until he’s on the right side of the bed, and feels the mattress dip down as Brad hits the lights and slides in behind him.

“Sometimes even you can have a good idea, Ray,” Brad says amusedly, draping an arm over Ray and yanking him backward a little until they’re pressed up against each other.

“My ideas are _all_ fucking awesome,” Ray mumbles. “Came here, didn’t I?” Brad’s answer is a tightening of his arm, and Ray just sinks back into him. He can feel the blood throbbing up under his skin at the sore places on his hip and his throat, the incipient bruises on his wrists, everywhere he’s been naked for so long. He drifts off to sleep, finally feeling whole again.

\--

-  



End file.
